I'm looking for a little advice; I have a Marantz M-CR603 and where I really enjoy its features and the fact the the whole family can use too (iPods, Spotify etc...) I've always felt that my speakers might be compromising the sound. My speakers are 16 year old Mordaunt Short MS25i floorstanders, they sound a little dull and I think missing some brightness, bass is there but not that defined.

So, I started looking for new speakers and have listened to speakers around my budget of £300. The good news is that they all sound better and cleaner and it was reassuring. Q Acoustics 2020i, MA BX2 and Dali Zensor 1 were my favourite.

My dilemma is that how can an tell if the better sound was because of the great demo location, better positioning etc... £250-300 is a lot to me and although I enjoy music and listen to music a lot, I would be so disappointed to fnd that the speakers weren't as good when I got them home.

i guess my question is, have speakers moved that much in 15-20 years to the extent that i would notice the difference that I heard in the demo room...it really was noticeable but I am just a bit nervous as the improvement seemed too good to be true.

any comments welcome, even ones recommending I just keep with what I have.

Of the ones you liked, can you try them out at home? Only you can tell really which sounds best. A decent dealer will let you try out at home (you'll need to cough up first obviously) but allow you to return them if they don't work out. I'd probably also add my Tannoys, the DC4 is around £300 in Richer Sounds these days, though your room may be on the big side if you're already running floorstanders. They work brilliantly in smaller room spaces however.

I've had my Mission 780's for a long time, so when I auditioned a few floorstanders at my local dealers it was relatively easy to compare the floorstanders at the shop, but it was only when I got them home on demo that I could truly relax and decide whether it was worth spending circa £800.

I arranged to collect one set of speakers each Saturday afternoon and demo them over the rest of the weekend, returning them on the Monday morning. This allowed me to listen to my Mission's first, and then swap them for the demo pair, with enough time over the weekend to listen to a whole variety of music and re-position the speakers if neccesary. It also meant that my wife and family had a listen as well and gave their views too.

I decided to keep my 780's (for now) and purchase some HC gear.

So if you really want to be sure, get the ones you liked most on demo at home - ideally over a weekend.